Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Going in blind

That's how my youngest is going in for her mandarin exam tomorrow, and I feel so sorry for her.

You see, we were first told that the P1s were not going to have any exams this year. Yippee! I thought. Then in about week 5, we were given a schedule of assessment for the first term. Being so busy, I hardly took notice of it. Then just last week, we were reminded of the coming tests, the results of which were going to be reported in the child's report book!

What? I thought no exams? But recording the result of a test in the report book is equivalent to giving them an exam not? An exam by any name is still an exam!

Anyway, she was to be having 3 tests back to back. I then realized that she wasn't very good at counting, so the last few days were spent on that, as her math test was the first of the 3 tests. I tried to give her pointers on how to check her answers, trying very hard to not make her too anxious about the test, and at the same time trying very hard to get her to realize that it is important that she does well and not make any silly mistakes and lose unnecessary marks.

This evening, I told my oldest to check the class blog on the format of the Chinese test tomorrow. The teacher had indicated that it would follow the format of the worksheets that they have been doing in class. But my girl hasn't brought a single worksheet home! Why? Because she has kept them under her desk in school!!

So, I can't really revise much with her, not knowing what format the test is going to take. And it is driving me nuts!, imagine going in for an exam blind! Poor girl. Just praying that she will be able to do well despite this handicap. Gulp!

Wish the schools would make up their minds on whether they are really going to be having exams for the kids!

Yikes! But look on the bright side, even if she does badly for this test, the NEXT one she will be well-prepared and it will be a Sugnificant improvement. Then you can tell her...that is why we need to prepare for exams. If she does well, she might go "no need to study also can do well. Next time no need to study lor"